


There Is Fear In Closing Your Eyes

by WriteThroughTheNight



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Character Study, Gen, Hallucinations, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, POV Switches, Sleep Deprivation, determined steve, like major spoilers, mild Steve/Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 13:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1511864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriteThroughTheNight/pseuds/WriteThroughTheNight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the man with the metal arm,- because that's who he is underneath all the names, all the confusing, heavy names; he is a man, maybe more than a man, he is more than a man and he has a metal arm and anything else is questionable- sometimes the man laughs. </p>
<p>He laughs because he knows he is tired. And yet his body won't sleep. He laughs because sometimes the voices say ridiculous things, like that he is a hero. Or that he once loved a man enough to fight in a war for him. The man with the metal arm may not know much, but he does know that he isn't capable of love.</p>
<p>(A LOT of Spoilers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier)</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Is Fear In Closing Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here we are, my first attempt at Steve/Bucky and also my feelings explosion after watching TWS. Seriously, that movie was so amazing that I can't even- it was just- Anyway when I say spoilers I mean the fic goes over most of the movie's plot, with a few quotes. I apologize for any inaccuracy on that front because I've only seen the movie once on opening night and my memory might be a bit sketchy on that front.
> 
> I have no beta, so all mistakes are mine, and mine alone, but a big thanks goes out to bioluminescent who always reads over my stuff for me.
> 
> Enjoy!

Steve falls, and he isn't planning on waking up.

_I'm with you 'til the end of the line._

If Bucky isn't Bucky, if Steve could have- should have- saved him, and didn't?

There's nothing worth waking up for.

-CA-

Steve wakes up.

-CA-

Steve wakes up with an image burning the back of his eyelids. A hand, reaching for him. Saving him from his second watery death.

Steve wakes up in the hospital and doesn't say anything. They can't take that away from him too.

-CA-

They let him out of the hospital a few days later. Sam won't leave his side ( _he's not Bucky, he'll never be Bucky_ , his traitorous mind shouts), but Natasha is nowhere to be seen. In a way, Steve is grateful. He'd wanted a friend sure, and despite what Natasha said she was well on her way, but now... Steve isn't sure that he won't break everyone he comes in contact with. He'd feel even better with Sam gone, but Steve doubts that will happen.

Fury gets a message to them in the hospital, a place to meet. It ends up on the empty chair by Steve's bed, in-between one blink and the next. When Steve leans to pick it up, Sam curses in surprise. Steve's expression doesn't waver from its imperturbable mask. It hasn't since his initial quip in Sam's direction. Occasionally the man shoots him worried looks, but once again Steve can't care. Bucky fell and survived, and so did Steve, but neither of them are the same.

They show up at the cemetery, looking down on the stone reading Nicholas J. Fury. It's supposed to be ironic, Steve thinks, as Fury comes up behind them, but it's not. Steve has stared into the eyes of too many dead men, walked over too many graves, for this to be at all amusing. Fury leaves, but he isn't who Steve is waiting for anyway.

Natasha shows up and she has the file.

Steve never requested it, (how could he have, she hadn't been around), but Black Widow knew anyway. It saves him the trouble of asking. There's a look in her eyes, saying she went through hell to get it, and that Steve will go through the same hell if he reads it. Steve will read it anyway. A punishment maybe, if Bucky had to suffer because of him, the least he can do is suffer with him, or maybe reading it's a reward. There are 70 years of Bucky's life that Steve wasn't present for and it hurts. The rule of Bucky and Steve was always that they knew everything about each other. From that first time Bucky fought the boys pummeling a ten-year-old Steve into the ground, to when Steve first _wanted_ Bucky, all for himself, to when Steve couldn't grab him fast enough, there has never been any secrets. Bucky knows Steve better than Steve knows himself and visa versa. But now there's something, 70 years of something, that Steve doesn't know about Bucky. No matter how painful, bloody, _wrong_ , it might be, reading the file will be a relief. Steve is greedy like that.

Natasha disappears. Sam still doesn't.

_I'm going to find him if it's the last thing I do,_ Steve doesn't quite say.

_You are a stupid-ass motherfucker, but I'll follow you anyway,_ Sam does say later, from the other bed in their rundown motel room.

Bucky and Sam will get along, Steve thinks.

If we get him back, he doesn't think.

~

The Winter Soldier doesn't know how to wake up, so he doesn't sleep.

What little he can remember (and it is little and only now does the Soldier realize this is wrong that something is wrong) tells him that he is never out of cryostasis for long. Being frozen isn't quite like sleeping so coming out if it isn't quite like waking up. The Winter Soldier is never out of the ice long enough to do more than lightly doze for an hour or two every day, the serum-tainted blood running through his veins ensuring that it's more than enough. But the Winter Soldier doesn't really sleep, and so he doesn't really wake up.

The longest he can remember being out of cryostasis is a week, maybe. Everything is only a vague blur, a smudged idea. His Russian Masters had been highly intelligent, and careful. More than 60 years, and the Winter Soldier only has broad notion of them.

He has a vague notion of a mission, of taking a shot, but other than that nothing for the years after he is sold. Just that one mission tells him HYDRA isn't as neat as his Masters,

He's already been out of the ice for five days when his mission actually begins. A man calling himself Alexander Pierce gives the orders and the Winter Soldier follows because that's what he's programmed to do. Complete the mission. Achieve his objective.

It's more difficult than he thought to take out the man with the eyepatch. In the almost ten years since he's been active, a lot has changed, a lot has advanced (If he was awake more recently, it was too brief to count for anything. The Winter Soldier wishes he could remember.) It's no different than the advances between missions when he worked for the KGB, but his Russian Masters always had a briefing ready for him when he woke up. Kept him informed and at the top of his game.

The Winter Soldier reasons that he would have been much more successful taking out the man with the eye patch if he was aware of the more _numerous_ methods of escape plausible.

He snipes the man anyway, when Pierce tells the Winter Soldier his location. Bullets still do the same damage, and the Winter Soldier is grateful. Grateful until the man, who the Winter Soldier hadn't shot because unless he was ordered otherwise civilian casualties were distasteful and messy, starts to chase him.

Apparently the Winter Soldier made the wrong assumption because the man chasing him is in no way a civilian or even a man. No regular human can keep up with the Winter Soldier.

He doesn't make it easy. Over roof tops, through windows, and even with the slightly altered strength of his body, his elongated endurance, even with that the Winter Soldier is nearly out of breath. For the first time in what feels like centuries, he has to work to survive. It's bizarrely wonderful; the Winter Soldier enjoys it.

They're on a roof top now. Five different methods of escape are available and all five involve the death of the man in front of him holding a shield. Underneath his mask, the Winter Soldier smiles at the ridiculousness of what he's seeing.

There is a man standing across from him, rage flickering in his expression, and holding a shield like he could actually take the Winter Soldier down with it. Something in the Soldier twinges, like a live wire. There is determination in the man's blue eyes when he throws the shield. There is confusion when the Winter Soldier flings his arm out and catches it, easily.

The force behind the throw surprises him too, as does the deft way the Winter Soldier handles the shield. Nothing in his memory tells him so, but at the same time, the Winter Soldier knows he's handled this shield before, knows how to catch it and knows how to throw it back at the man with exactly enough force to make him stumble. In his brief moment of distraction, the Winter Soldier disappears.

He tells himself later that he didn't use one of the plans including the man's death because he didn't know quite what the man was capable of. That he shouldn't take a risk with unknown variables. 

It's easy to convince himself that it isn't because of the odd way the man makes him feel. Unmoored. Unstable.

Unsure.

-TWS-

The Winter Soldier doesn't sleep before he gets his orders from Pierce and he doesn't sleep afterwards. He thinks of the way the man on the roof had broken something inside him and the Winter Soldier is afraid of what he'll see if he closes his eyes.

He dozes though, and when Pierce gives him the order to kill Captain America, the Winter Soldier feels nothing but relief.

Something in him longs brokenly for the ice, for simplicity and what he understands.

The Winter Soldier is supposed to want nothing but to complete his mission and serve his masters.

It has been a week since he came out of cryostasis.

-TWS-

He hunts them down eventually, when Pierce has told him that their aerial strike failed. Captain America is in a car with another man and a woman, one who strikes the Winter Soldier as familiar.

_Red hair and small hands and his Masters telling him to train her, make her. He does not have much association with the Red Room, but his Masters brought him in for this. They want this girl to be the best. Do the best. So of course, she must learn from the best. Natalia Romanova is twelve years old._

_Red hair and still small hands and his new master telling him to take the shot, regardless of who is in the way. The Winter Soldier does and he does not regret it. But he doesn't shoot to kill them both._

_They blur her memory again and again but he does not forget, not completely._

The Winter Soldier shakes this off and gets to work because there is nothing beyond the mission.

(Though it reminds him that two weeks was the longest he has been out of cryostasis, the two weeks he spent training the Black Widow. By the end he had been unstable, and he had told the little girl almost good enough to take him down that his name was Yasha- James. He didn't sleep those two weeks and cryo was a vacation after them. The next time he wakes up he remembers nothing. He hasn't been out for more than five days since then.)

They fight and the Black Widow is smart and strong but she is still so delicate. The shock to his metal arm hurts, but he's used to pain. So used to it.

The Captain is more of a challenge.

His strength is equal or perhaps more than the Winter Soldier's and meets him blow for blow. He's a smart fighter and once again the Soldier must actually exert himself to stay alive.

Then the blow comes to his face and the mask flies off.

The Winter Soldier isn't fazed, the mask is a precaution sure, but he's lost it before. What he isn't anticipating is Captain America's reaction. He looks like he's seen a ghost.

"Bucky?"

_"Bucky!" There is a voice screaming his name and a man that he loves more than the world itself. The man is reaching, desperate, but Bucky is falling. He is falling and falling and he just wants to tell the man that he loves him one more time, but he can't and there's impact and snow and cold_ and so much pain-

"Who the hell is Bucky?" The name tingles on his lips and he looks into Captain America's eyes and sees salvation and home and safety. And the Winter Soldier knows his name is Steve.

But then there are sirens and it's self-evident SHIELD has arrived. So the Winter Soldier disappears.

He has never failed a mission before.

And yet.

-TWS-

He reports in and they have him sitting in a chair.

The Winter Soldier hears the words unstable, remembering, dangerous, and he thinks _Yes, I am._

Pierce arrives, and he tries to explain, tries to make the man understand.

"The man on the bridge, I knew him." 

His name is Steve, the Winter Soldier wants to shout, Steve Rogers and he's a punk that never backs down from a fight and I think I love him.

"But I knew him."

They wipe him, and the Winter Soldier is scared, scared of remembering, of knowing, and he doesn't fight.

They take everything and wash it away with pain.

-TWS- 

They forget that the Winter Soldier is very good at dealing with pain.

-TWS-

It has been a week and two days since the Winter Soldier came out of cryostasis.

-TWS-

There is something missing, the Winter Soldier knows. Memories that he's missing. His original Masters did this too, the Winter Soldier acknowledges. But they weren't as sloppy. The Winter Soldier can feel the memories dangling like a loose thread in his mind. It takes everything he has to not worry at it. Not yet, at least.

Explosions and fire ring around him, and the man has no chance when the Winter Soldier steals the plane.

Landing on the helicarrier, the Soldier waits. Waits, and then strikes.

The ex-soldier with the mechanical wings goes down, and there's a flash of regret for destroying such a beautiful mechanism.

He faces off against Captain America and the man's words trigger something in him. It's odd and painful and confusing.

The Winter Soldier thinks this might be what it feels like to be alive.

They fight hard and dirty. Nothing like the cool, clinical, sharp fighting style the Soldier is expecting- is used to. It reminds him, in a vague sort-of way, of two boys wrestling on the playground.

Captain America puts him in a choke hold, and doesn't let go until the Winter Soldier has stopped struggling and the world is going black. But he's not down, not yet.

Honestly, he's much harder to subdue than _that._

The first bullet into the man feels like letting go, feels like relief. The rest leave a bad taste in the Winter Soldier's mouth and he doesn't know why. Captain America hardly stumbles.

Then the explosion rocks the helicarrier and the Winter Soldier is down and trapped.

This is where he's going to die. It isn't a frightening thought. Better to die than to have failed this horribly, this drastically. Better to die than admit that he feels human, lost and human.

But Captain America, for some reason, scrambles back down for him and sets him free. Stupid. So stupid.

_"How could I? You're taking all the stupid with you."_

The Winter Soldier snarls and takes it out on the man with his fists.

"You're my friend."

"You're my mission."

Complete the objective. Kill Captain America. That's all there is. That's all there can be.

Kill Captain America and find his way back into cryostasis and stay frozen until it feels less like the Soldier is being stabbed in the chest every time he punches, every time he so much as looks at the Captain.

"Then finish it! 'Cause I'm with you till the end of the line."

Something inside him screams with remembrance and that loose thread unwinds into nothing.

He's not quick enough to stop the Captain from falling. There's another memory of falling burned into his eyelids.

With a moment of startling clarity, the Winter Soldier knows.

He can't let Steve Rogers die.

He may not know who he is, what he's done, why he needs to do this, but the Winter Soldier flings himself after the man called Captain America and drags him to shore.

He can't bring himself to leave until Rogers sucks in a breath, and then another.

Only then does he disappear.

-TWS-

He goes to the Smithsonian in a baseball cap and a ponytail. 

James Barnes. His name is James Barnes.

He grew up in Brooklyn, and fell to his death in the mountains. Steve Rogers was his best and closest friend. 

His lover too, the Winter- no, James (he will be James now) thinks.

The only thing he remembers is pale fragile hipbones under his hands, warm skin under his cheek, and falling to the tune of his name.

It's not his name any longer.

Not yet.

-TWS-

It has been a week and four days since James Barnes came out of cryostasis.

-TWS-

He hasn't slept because he doesn't know how to wake up.

He hasn't slept because he's afraid of what's waiting for him when he finally does.

-TWS-

The exhibit tells James that he hails from Brooklyn, so it's to Brooklyn he goes. Stealing a car gets him most of the way there, until he runs out of gas with no money to refuel. James pickpockets someone's wallet, and the money is more than enough to get him a bus ticket for the rest of the way.

It's odd riding the bus. James thinks he's done so before, but knows his Russian Masters would never have risked it. That means it's from before. The time Captain America, and the history books keep bringing up.

He's bought a few cheap history books on the trip so far, basic ones on Captain America, and one on the Howling Commandos. It's surprisingly painful to read about the men called Dum-Dum, Morita, Falsworth, Gabe, and Dernier. It's even more painful to read about Steve Rogers' childhood. When it mentions _mild asthma_ James wants to shake his hands at the heavens because he remembers a twig thin chest shaking, and gasping noises that definitely weren't breathing. He remembers thinking _Steve ain't gonna make it for sure this time, what am I gonna do-_

The memories stop and James sucks in a shaky breath of his own. What had been so strong only moments before is now only a fuzzy idea. 

James skips over the rest of Steve's and his childhood just in case.

-TWS-

James spends two days walking around Brooklyn, roaming the streets.

He's looking for something, sure, but he doesn't know what. None of the buildings look familiar and no new (old) memories leap out at him. In the daytime, he sticks to the alleys, dragging his feet when he feels like it, and occasionally letting the metal of his arm ping off the bricks.

At night, James prowls like a predator. Even when he tries to make noise, break the heavy silence in the dark, his body disobeys. The Winter Soldier is at home in the night, allies with it, and no matter how hard he tries, James can't break that.

He lets it break him a little. Pretends it makes him more human.

None of his important memories come back, not like he was hoping. There's a promise that they will every night, whispered from the shadows. Whispered from the people who walk beside him. James has not slept and he will not, even as he descends into hallucination.

The Winter Soldier had control over nothing, not even his own limbs. James- James has control and it is addictive.

Sleep is an unknown.

Unknowns can take control.

James does not know how to sleep, does not know how to wake up, does not know.

So he walks around Brooklyn.

-TWS-

There's an abandoned, run-down church. After his second day of walking, this is where James goes. He needs to doze, even if it is not enough. Under a cross, lying on what was once- and is still because unlike memories, blessings (curses) cannot be removed so easily- holy ground, James closes his eyes.

He opens them two hours later and is perhaps more tired than he was when he went to sleep.

-TWS-

James does not leave the church. Instead he waits. 

-TWS-

It has been two weeks.

-TWS-

There is freedom in being awake and fear in closing your eyes.

James is free and he does not (cannot) feel fear.

-TWS-

The man, no Steve, because James _remembers_ that much, will come. He may not remember anything else, he may not remember who he is, but James remembers this. The man with the blond hair, blue eyes, and strong, delicate hands always comes.

This James knows.

~

Steve uses his 'puppy eyes of mass destruction' on Stark, and then he has JARVIS on the look out. Tony and Steve hadn't stayed close necessarily, but they'd worked through their issues after the Battle. Did Steve regret that he couldn't be closer with Howard's only son? Of course, but Tony had fled to California after the Battle of New York, and Steve could never fault him for that.

Besides Steve had been pretty unstable himself, still was if he was being honest.

Thats the fallacy of everyone- nearly everyone- in this new age. Because Captain America is a figure-head, a representation of everything America can be, it means that he is perfect and adjusted and comfortable. 

Steve is not perfect and adjusted and comfortable.

He's lost everyone he'd loved, cared for, trusted. Oh, sure, to everyone else it was 70 years ago and Captain America has had plenty enough time to rebound and get over it. For Steve it was two years ago. Before and during the Battle it had been about a month.

Two years has done nothing to lessen the blow of being a man out of time. Steve tries to comfort himself, at first, with the idea that at least he hasn't watched them all die. Dum-Dum, or Gabe, or Dernier. Peggy is even still alive!

It's worse. Because they have lived lives, become something other than what Steve had known them as. Steve has never gotten his closure or goodbye.

And then of course, there's Bucky.

Bucky, who still wakes Steve screaming at night. Bucky, who is seared into Steve's eyelids screaming, falling, reaching.

Two years or seventy years, Steve knows without a doubt that it won't matter.

Bucky can't be erased so easily. His best friend, his right-hand man, his _everything_ , Steve isn't just going to get over that.

No, that doesn't mean he isn't an American symbol- what can be, or whatever people are saying Steve is now- it just means that America doesn't have to be adjusted and perfect and comfortable, that being all that you can does not mean stability but instead risk, and fighting, and vulnerability.

That's what Steve is. He is on the edge, and raw, and wages a battle on everything. He's a soldier that doesn't follow orders, and a monkey that refuses to dance.

And- well- perhaps Steve is more like Tony than he, or anyone, had thought.

-CA-

Only a few hours after Steve recruits JARVIS, he gets a hit.

It's an old hit, from five days prior. JARVIS brings up the footage for Steve and Sam, and Steve has to dig his nails into his palm. His breathing is smooth and even, but internally Steve is screaming.

Bucky has black holes under his eyes, and scruff. The Bucky Steve knew ( _loves_ , the quiet voice in his mind whispers) had never let his hair grow unkempt or long. Every morning, Bucky was in the bathroom shaving, again during the day if he had to. No matter the ruffian he'd claimed to be, and was on occasion, Bucky was all about cleanliness, respect.

He'd spend his meager wages on a new pair of shoes for Steve before anything else. Spend his evenings stitching torn clothing back together. Spend far too long washing the dirt off Steve's face after his latest brawl.

But now, Bucky is dirty and messy, and as far as Steve can tell the man simply doesn't care. He looks tired, so tired.

Steve wonders if he's even slept since coming after Steve the second time. It must have been a long few days. Grumpiness and clumsiness are the only things that come from an exhausted Bucky. Steve would know.

-CA-

He's rewatched the meager five minutes of footage a dozen times before it hits him. 

Steve knows where Bucky'll go. Where he is already.

-CA-

Inevitably, irrevocably, irrefutably, lost things return home.

-CA-

Bucky is lost and Steve will find him.

-CA-

The rule of Bucky and Steve is that they know everything about each other.

The second rule is that they never leave the other behind, that they always have each other's backs.

-CA-

"When we get to Brooklyn, I need you to promise me something Sam." Steve looks up through his eyelashes. "Promise me you won't follow me."

Sam is incredulous.

"Are you kidding me Steve? Did you forget that the last time you two interacted, the Wint- _Barnes_ Jesus keep that glare to yourself, but have you forgotten that Barnes tried to kill you?"

(A lie. The last time they met the Winter Soldier tried to kill him but Bucky pulled him out of the water. Bucky saved him.)

"Bucky won't hurt me, he'd never hurt me."

"Oh, for christ's sake. You are fucking insane Rogers."

"Sam. Please."

"Fine! Fine! But when you get your dumb ass killed, don't expect me to be surprised."

-CA-

Barely a day later Steve is walking the streets- his streets. He's so close he can taste it.

For the first time since he woke up, hell if he's being honest it's since Bucky fell off the train, Steve feels something close to peace.

~

The Winter Soldier-James-Bucky-hell whoever he is, it doesn't matter nothing matters except the voices except the things they say the things they tempt him with- the man with the metal arm and long hair has not slept. He has not drifted. 

He has remained awake and alert at his post.

He does not tire.

-TWS-

The man with the metal arm has heard the voices and he does not fear them anymore than he fears the shadows. Sometimes he sees people he's only read about-the ones he should remember. More often than not he sees Steve.

He is short then tall; thin then strong; sick then healthy. It is this change that reminds the man that he is hallucinating.

It is Steve that anchors him to the fact that he is going crazy but not yet insane.

Sometimes the man with the metal arm,- because that's who he is underneath all the names, all the confusing, heavy names; he is a man, maybe more than a man, he is more than a man and he has a metal arm and anything else is questionable- sometimes the man laughs. 

He laughs because he knows he is tired. And yet his body won't sleep. He laughs because sometimes the voices say ridiculous things, like that he is a hero. Or that he once loved a man enough to fight in a war for him. The man with the metal arm may not know much, but he does know that he isn't capable of love.

Right now, the man does not think himself capable of moving.

So he doesn't.

-TWS-

There are voices and people. Sometimes the man with the metal arm swears they are actually there. But they aren't.

He waits.

Despite not remembering what he's waiting for, the man waits. 

~ 

Steve is walking down their old neighborhood. Or a street that has the same name as their old neighborhood.

It's hardly the same place, their place, now.

Steve stops in front of the church on the corner.

Back when they had been children, Bucky and Steve had gone to church together.

Their mothers had made sure to take them every Sunday, and Steve and Bucky had usually spent the time snickering together in the pews.

After both of their mothers had died, Steve could never drag Bucky within five miles of a church. But Steve, Steve still went, every single Sunday.

Bucky would tease him, mock him for it, but Steve still went.

Even after they shared the kiss (and more, there was so much more) that supposedly damned them both to hell, Steve still went to church. When Bucky had asked him why, one night, when Steve's head was pillowed on his chest and Bucky's hand was carding through blond hair, Steve had told him that he didn't think God cared much. That despite what the old grannies who sniffed at two young man living alone together said, God didn't care if Steve and Bucky loved dames, each other, or even no one at all.

Bucky had pretended otherwise, but Steve had felt him lose a bit of tension. Bucky didn't go to church but sometimes Steve caught him praying. Usually when Steve was laid up in bed or they were short on cash, but still. Bucky didn't scoff as much after that when Steve woke up early for mass on Sunday. Even if he did bitch at losing his Steve blanket.

Steve hasn't gone inside a church since he woke up. 

Something makes Steve go inside this one.

It's abandoned, condemned even. Its topmost spire is leaning wildly, and the building looks as if its survived a bombing.

Yet, still, the same hush that Steve felt when he crossed the gates in the thirties brushes across his ears now.

The doors of the church push open easily. He's ready for the dirty floor, lighter in spots where pews used to be. Chestnut colored rug curls jaggedly where it meets the wall, and several stained glass windows, not entirely visible from the entrance, are gone. One wall is marred with bright pink spray paint, and Steve can't even find it in him to be annoyed. It's everything he'd expected going in.

He's not quite sure why he's doing this to himself. Brooklyn hurts, never mind places he actually recognizes. Steve tells himself he is prepared, and that there is not a knife twisting in his chest. He repeats it, a mantra, over and over again.

Preparation is naught, however, when he looks to the back of the church.

Hazy blue eyes lock with his and Steve can't breathe.

~

It has been two weeks and three days since the man with the metal arm came out of cryostasis.

He has not been continuously aware for this long since 1945.

-TWS-

Sleep deprivation leads to such consequences as aching muscles; confusion, memory lapses or loss; depression; hallucinations; hand tremors; and headaches.

-TWS-

James Buchanan Barnes has not slept in two weeks and three days.

~

"Jeez Buck, you look like shit." Steve manages. He can't stop himself from walking closer.

He's right though, the only other time Steve's seen Bucky looking worse is when he picked him up off Zola's table. At least then he'd been mostly aware, talking, joking. Now, Bucky watches Steve with empty, shadowed eyes. There is no recognition, but no anger either. There is just... Nothing, except perhaps exhaustion.

The closer Steve gets, the worse it looks. Bucky's seated himself in the corner, across from where the altar would be. He's got his knees pulled up to his chest, one metal and one flesh arm wrapped around them. Trembling like a leaf, with unwashed hair and too much stubble, Bucky reminds Steve of the men they'd find in alleys on the way back from Bucky's job at the docks. High on something and looking like they hadn't bathed for weeks.

Bucky's eyes are the worst though.

Puffy and red, like he's been crying. There are bags under his eyes larger than the ones they packed in the war, with dark circles heavy enough that it looks as if his best friend was socked in the eye.

Never mind not sleeping since he faced Steve last, Steve thinks it's more likely Bucky hadn't slept since 1945. 

When he finally finds Bucky, Steve is prepared for many possibilities. A fight, most definitely. Steve has a needle on him with enough tranquilizer to knock out a horse, or, alternately, Steve himself. Steve is ready to look into the face of the only person he has left in the world and see hate, or anger. Sharp biting words thrown to wound, sure, resistance, of course. But not this.

Now, Steve approaches Bucky, and his friend doesn't so much as flinch. Wide empty eyes follow him, but only look past and through, not at.

"Bucky?" Steve is only a foot away from him now. Despite the fact that it makes him vulnerable, Steve drops to a crouch. He's just about eye level with Bucky now, but there's no movement from the man. So Steve decides to take a risk.

His hand is shaking when he stretches it out. Trembling even worse than that time he had a fever so high Bucky carried him to the hospital.

They are no stranger to touching each other. As kids they'd shared beds, wrestled as much as Steve was able. When Steve would fall ill Bucky would stay and hold his hand as long as he was allowed. After Steve finally got the courage to lean in for that first kiss, all bets were off. Nights spent huddled under the blankets exploring each other. Furtive touches in public that held so much more than they appeared to. Long lingering touches safe at home, desperation in every caress.

When Steve found Bucky strapped to Zola's table it had taken all he had not to kiss him right there. Instead he'd managed as much casual touching as possible. It was the same on the march back to base, until Steve managed to secure them a tent far enough away from any other. Bucky had been fascinated with Steve's new body, and Steve had just been glad Bucky was alive.

When they were on mission with the Howling Commandos, they rarely got any alone time. But it was okay because the rest of the men knew to always put Bucky's sleeping bag next to Steve. Gabe joked that their fearless captain and his best mate hardly needed to talk, they touched so much. They must have their own secret language.

In a way, Steve thinks, they did.

Now, Steve settles a quivering hand to curve over Bucky's jaw and breathes. For the first time in over two years, actual air makes it to his lungs.

Bucky's face is rough and stubbled, but the skin underneath is soft, like it always has been. His middle finger hooks beneath Bucky's ear lobe, just brushing the long black hair. It's greasy, and far too long, but it's still Buck's. Steve places his left hand on Bucky's flesh and blood shoulder and squeezes. Thumb sweeping a path over Bucky's cheekbone without his permission, Steve Rogers leans forward and rests his forehead against his best friend's.

"It's okay Buck, I'm here now. 'Til the end of the line, remember?"

Steve isn't sure if he's imagining it, but Bucky, who hasn't so much as shifted despite Steve invading his personal space, sounds a little bit shaky on his next exhale.

~

His hallucination is talking, and this time Steve is the strong, tall version of himself. The man with the metal arm looks but does not see. He sees instead every other version of Steve, layered on top of each other, and he hears every voice shouting and screaming and crying and begging and sometimes just talking.

The man with the metal arm has a headache like no other he's ever felt. Or he thinks it is. Everything is aching and throbbing and the man longs for cold and ice as much as he fears it.

Some part of him sees the man with blond hair, blue eyes and a smile that sends shivers up his spine (he's already shaking, the man knows, he keeps forgetting why) walk closer and closer. Some part of him watches the man crouch down. A shaking, trembling hand is reaching, reaching for him but the man with the metal arm isn't concerned.

He knows the hallucinations can't touch him. He's held onto the fact that they are hallucinations this long, and he knows that the fabrications of the mind cannot touch him. The man with the metal arm may be going crazy but he is not yet insane. 

But then there is a hand curved around his jaw and someone gripping his shoulder. Then there is a forehead pressed against his and words echoing in his ears.

_'Til the end of the line._

-TWS-

James Buchanan Barnes does not know who he is, not yet.

He has memories rattling around that don't make sense, and worse, memories not rattling around.

James Buchanan Barnes has not slept in 413 hours and before that was hardly sleep, but instead a suspension in time. He has been plagued by hallucinations for the last 103 hours. For the past 81 hours, he has remained in a trance state, half aware, practically in one of the fever dreams frequent of Steve in his childhood. 

He has killed people, innocent people, and he has saved some. He has trained the best, the deadliest the world has to offer, and then subsequently taken them out. He has held his best friend, the most important thing in his life, and thought _he won't make it this time_. He has smiled and laughed and danced when he was proven wrong.

James Buchanan Barnes has done many things; made shitty choices and had shitty choices made for him. He does not know who he is, who he is supposed to be, or who he will be become.

But that's okay.

Bucky is being hugged by a man that he has saved, and that he has been saved by. The voices and people have stopped screaming at him for now, and all he can hear is two sets of uneven breathing. One heartbeat, loud in his ears. 

Two arms are holding him like he is precious. He might be, Bucky can't-won't remember. Not yet.

It is a supreme effort to lift his arms, one metal and one flesh. It is awkward and messy but it feels alright to put them around the shaking man. He knows what it is to be cold, and he doesn't want that. Not now. Never for this man

That done, Bucky Barnes, Captain America's side-kick and Steve Rogers' best friend, closes his eyes and lets go.

There is freedom in being awake and fear in closing your eyes, but Bucky has always been stupidly brave when it came to Steve.

He doesn't remember what happens next. And for once, that's okay.

He's safe.


End file.
